The Complete Tawny Man Trilogy Omnibus (178 page)

I gave myself three breaths to centre myself and gather my Skill. Then I closed my eyes and put my arm lightly across Thick in order to deepen our Skill-connection. I had expected him to have his walls up against me, but he was defenceless. I slipped into a dream in which a lost kitten paddled desperately in a boiling sea. I drew him from the water as Nettle had done and took him back to the waggon and the bed and the cushion. I promised him that he was safe and felt his anxiety ease a little. But even in his dreams, he recognized me. ‘But you made me!’ the kitten suddenly cried out. ‘You made me come on a boat again!’

I had expected anger and defiance, or even an attack following those words. What I received was worse. He cried. The kitten wept inconsolably, in a small child’s voice. I felt the gulf of his disappointment that I could betray him so. He had trusted me. I picked him up and held him, but still he cried, and I could not comfort him, for I was at the base of his sorrow.

I was not expecting Nettle. It was not night, and I doubted that she was sleeping. I suppose I had always assumed that she could only Skill when she slept. A foolish notion, but there it was. As I sat rocking the tiny creature that was Thick, I felt her presence beside me. Give
him to
me, she said with a woman’s weariness at a man’s incompetence. Guilty at my relief, I let her take him from me. I faded into the background of his dream, and felt his tension ease as I retreated from him. It hurt that he found my presence upsetting, but I could not blame him.

After a time, I found myself sitting at the base of the melted tower. It seemed a very forsaken place. The dead brambles coated
the steep hillsides all around it, and the only sound was the wind soughing through their branches. I waited.

Nettle came.
Why this?
she asked, sweeping an arm at the desolation that surrounded us.

It seemed appropriate
, I replied dispiritedly.

She gave a snort of contempt and then, with a wave, made the dead brambles into deep summer grasses. The tower became a circle of broken stone on the hillside, with flowering vines wandering over it. She seated herself on a sun-warmed stone, shook out her red skirts over her bare feet and asked,
Are you always this dramatic?

I suspect I am.

It must be exhausting to be around you. You’re the second most emotional man I know.

The first being?

My father. He came home yesterday.

I caught my breath, and tried to be casual as I asked
And?

And he had gone to Buckkeep Castle. That is as much as he told us. He looks as if he has aged a decade and yet sometimes I catch him gazing across the room and smiling. Despite his fogged eyes, he keeps staring at me, as if he has never seen me before. Mother says she feels as if he keeps saying farewell to her. He comes to her and puts his arms around her and holds her as if she might be snatched away at any moment. It is hard to describe how he behaves; as if some heavy task is finally finished, and yet he also acts like a man preparing for a journey.

What has he told you?
I tried to keep her from sensing my dread.

Nothing. And no more than that to my mother, or so she says. He brought gifts for all of us when he came back. Jumping jacks for my smallest brothers, and cleverly carved puzzle boxes for the older boys. For my mother and me, little boxes with necklaces of wooden beads inside them, not roughly shaped but each carved like a jewel. And a horse, the loveliest little mare I’ve ever seen.

I waited, knowing what I would hear next and yet praying it would not be said.

And he himself now wears an earring, a sphere carved from wood. I’ve never seen him wear an earring before. I didn’t even know his ear was pierced for one.

I wondered if they had talked, Lord Golden and Burrich. Perhaps the Fool had merely left those gifts with Queen Kettricken to be passed on to Burrich. I wondered so many things and could ask none of them.
What are you doing right now?
I asked her instead.

Dipping tapers. The most boring and stupid task that
exists. For a moment, she was silent. Then,
I’ve a message for you.

My heart stopped at those words.
Oh?

If I dream of the wolf again, my father says, I’m to tell him, you should have come home a long time ago.

Tell him
… A thousand messages flitted through my mind. What could I say to a man I hadn’t seen in sixteen years? Tell him that he needn’t fear I’ll take anything away from him? Tell him that I love still as I have always loved? No. Not that. Tell him I forgive him. No, for he never knowingly wronged me. Those words could only increase whatever burden he put upon himself. There were a thousand things I longed to say and none I dared send through Nettle.

Tell him?
Nettle prompted me, avidly curious.

Tell him I was speechless. And grateful to him. As I have been for many years.

It seemed inadequate, and yet I forced myself to say no more. I would not be impetuous. I would think long and hard before I gave any real message to Nettle to relay to Burrich. I did not know how much she knew or guessed. I did not even know how much Burrich knew of all that had befallen me since last we parted. Better to regret unsaid words than repent of words I could never call back.

Who are you?

I owed her at least that much. A name to call me by. There was only one that seemed right to give her.
Changer. My name is Changer.

She nodded, both disappointed and pleased. In another place and time, my Wit warned me that others were near me. I pulled away from the dream and she reluctantly let me go. I eased back into my own flesh. For a time longer, I kept my eyes closed while opening all my other senses. I was in the cabin, Thick breathing heavily beside me. I smelled the oil the minstrel used on the wood of his harp and then heard Swift whisper, ‘Why is he sleeping now?’

‘I’m not,’ I said quietly. I eased my arm away from Thick lest I awake him and then sat up slowly. ‘I was just getting Thick settled. He is still very sick. I wish we didn’t have to bring him on this voyage.’

Swift was still looking at me oddly. Cockle the minstrel was moving very softly, wiping the frame of his repaired harp with oil. I stood, head bent beneath the low ceiling and looked at Burrich’s son. Much as he wished to avoid me, I had a duty. ‘Are you busy with anything right now?’ I asked Swift.

He looked at Cockle as if expecting the minstrel to speak for him. When he remained silent, Swift replied quietly, ‘Cockle was going to play some Six Duchies songs for the Outislanders. I was going to listen to them.’

I took a breath. I needed to pull this boy closer to me if I were going to keep my word to Nettle. Yet I’d already alienated him by trying to send him home. Too firm a rein on him now would not gain his trust. So I said, ‘Much can be learned from a minstrel’s songs. Listen, also, to what the Outislanders say and sing, and do your best to gain a few words of their language. Later, we will speak of what you learned.’

‘Thank you,’ he said stiffly. It was as hard for him to express gratitude as it was for him to acknowledge I had authority over him. I would not push for that, yet. So I nodded to him and let him leave. Cockle swept me a minstrel’s gracious bow at the door and for an instant our eyes met. The friendliness there surprised me, until he bade me farewell with, ‘It’s rare to find a man-at-arms who values learning, and rarer still to find one who recognizes that minstrels can be a source of it. I thank you, sir.’

‘It is I who thank you. My prince has asked me to educate the lad. Perhaps you can show him that gaining knowledge need not be painful.’ In the blink of an eye, I made a second decision. ‘I’ll join you, if I would not be intruding.’

He flourished me another bow. ‘I’d be honoured.’

Swift had gone ahead of us, and he did not look pleased when he saw me accompanying the musician.

The Outislander sailors were like any sailors I’ve ever known anywhere. Any sort of entertainment was preferable to the daily
tedium of the ship. Those not currently on duty soon gathered to hear Cockle sing. It was a fine setting for the minstrel, standing on the bare deck with the wind in his hair and the sun at his back. The men who gathered to hear him brought their own handiwork with them, much as women would have brought their embroidery or knitting. One worked a tatter of old rope into a knotted mat; another carved lazily at a bit of hardwood. The intentness with which they listened confirmed what I had suspected. By choice or by chance, most of Peottre’s crew had a working knowledge of Duchy tongue. Even those of the crew working the sails nearby had one ear for the music.

Cockle gave them several traditional Six Duchies ballads that memorialized the Farseer monarchs. Wise enough a man was he to avoid any of the songs that had to do with our long feud with the Out Islands. I wouldn’t have to sit through
Antler Island Tower
today. Swift appeared to pay good attention to the songs. His attention was most deeply snared when Cockle told an Old Blood fable in song. I watched the Outislander sailors as Cockle sang it and wondered if I’d see the same disgust and resentment that many Six Duchies people showed when such songs were sung. I didn’t. Instead, the sailors seemed to accept it as a strange song of foreign magic.

When he had finished, one of the Outislander sailors stood with a broad grin which wrinkled the boar tattoo on his cheek. He’d set aside his whittling and now he brushed the fine curls of clinging wood from his chest and trousers. ‘You think that magic is strong?’ he challenged us. ‘I know a stronger, and best you know it, too, for face it you might.’

With one bare foot, he nudged the shipmate who sat on the deck beside him. Plainly embarrassed at the circle of listeners, this man nonetheless tugged free a little carved whistle that hung inside his shirt on a string around his neck and played a simple, wailing tune on it, while his fellow, with more drama than voice, hoarsely sang us a tale of the Black Man of Aslevjal. He sang in Outislander, and in the special accents that their bards used, making the song even harder for me to follow. The Black Man stalked the island, and woe to any who came there with unworthy intents. He was the dragon’s
guardian, or perhaps he was the dragon in human form. Black as the dragon was black, ‘something’ as the dragon was ‘something’, strong as the wind and as unslayable, and unforgiving as ice was he. He would gnaw the bones of the cowardly, and slice the flesh of the rash, he would …

‘To your duty!’ Peottre suddenly interjected into our circle. His command was good-naturedly severe, reminding us that he was acting captain on this ship as well as our host. The sailor stopped barking the song and looked at him askance. I sensed a tension there; the boar proclaimed that this was Arkon Bloodblade’s warrior. Most of the crew was marked as Bloodblade’s, loaned to Peottre for this task. Peottre gave a tiny shake of his head at the sailor, as much rebuke as warning, and the man lowered his shoulders.

‘At what task, then, in our hours of rest?’ he still asked, a hint of bravado in his tone.

Peottre spoke mildly but his stance said he would tolerate no defiance. ‘Your duty, Rutor, is to rest in these hours, so that when you are called to work, you come fresh to the task. Rest, then, and leave entertaining our guests to me.’

Behind him, both Chade and the Prince had emerged from their cabin to watch curiously. Web stood behind them. I wondered if Peottre had heard the man’s song and excused himself abruptly from their company. I reached to them both.
Do we know a tale of the Black Man on Aslevjal Island? One who guards the dragon, perhaps? For that is the song that Peottre has just silenced.

I know nothing. I will ask Chade in a quiet moment.

Chade?
I attempted a direct contact.

There was no response. He did not even shift his eyes toward me.

I think he attempted too much yesterday.

Has he taken any teas today?
I asked suspiciously. Skill-effort such as Chade had expended yesterday could well leave a novice exhausted, yet the old man was moving as spryly as ever. Elfbark? I wondered jealously. Denied to me but used by him?

He has some foul brew nearly every morning. I’ve no idea what is in it.

I quashed the thought before I could betray myself to the Prince. I did resolve to purloin a pinch of Chade’s tea herbs if I could and determine what he was using. The old man was too careless with his health. He would burn his life away while trying to spend it in our cause.

I had no such opportunity. The remaining days of our brief voyage passed uneventfully. I was kept occupied with Thick’s care and Swift’s education. These two actually merged, for when Thick awoke from a long sleep, he was weak and fretful, yet would not tolerate me looking after him. He was willing to accept Swift’s attentions, however. The boy was understandably reluctant. Caring for a sick man is tedious and can be unpleasant. Swift also felt the ingrained abhorrence that many Six Duchies folk feel toward the malformed. My disapproval did not shake this from him, but Web’s calm acceptance of Thick’s differences gradually swayed the boy. Web’s ability to teach Swift by example made me feel a clumsy and thoughtless guardian. I wanted so badly to do well by Swift, as well as Burrich had done by Nettle, and yet I repeatedly failed even to win his trust.

Days can be long when one feels useless. I had little time with Chade or the Prince. There was no casual way to be alone with either of them on the crowded ship, so communication was limited to the use of the Skill. I tried to reach to Chade as little as possible, hoping that a time of rest would rebuild his ability. The Prince relayed to me that Chade knew nothing of a Black Man on Aslevjal Island. Peottre kept the sailor who had sung of him extremely busy, so he was not available as a source for me. Isolated from Chade and Dutiful and rejected by Thick, I felt lonely and incapable of discovering peace anywhere. My heart yearned out to old memories, to my simple romance with Molly and the effortless friendship I had once shared with the Fool. Nighteyes came often to my mind, for Web and his bird were very much in evidence and Civil’s cat trailed him everywhere on the ship. I had lost the passionate attachments I had formed in my youth, and lost, too, the heart to seek others. As for Nettle, and Burrich’s invitation for me to ‘come home’ … my heart ached with longing to do just that, but I knew it was a time that I longed to return to, not a place, and neither Eda nor
El offers that to a man. When we sailed into a tiny harbour, no more than a bite out of a small island’s coast, and Peottre shouted with pleasure to see his home, envy flooded me.